Hooked on Phonics worked for Ron?
by kolchaksghost
Summary: Very AU replacement for PoA.  During the Weasly's trip to Egypt before third year, Ron does something stupid and brings back Imhotep.  How will Harry and Co. react to the evil mummy.  Harry/Multi.  Ardeth mentors Harry on the Power He Knows Not. ADOPTED!
1. Chapter 1

**Hooked on Phonics worked for Ron?**

_During the reign of Pharaoh Seti I, the wizard king of Egypt deified by his subjects for such works as building Hamunaptra – the resting place of the wealth of the kingdom, a stranger walked out of the deep desert. A wizard/priest, he was called Imhotep and claimed to be named after the great architect and healer of old. Through cunning, Imhotep rose quickly through the Pharaoh's court until he became High Priest, Seti's most trusted advisor. He used his role to lull Seti into a false sense of security that ultimately cost the Pharaoh his life._

_The reality was that while Imhotep was a priest, he was a priest of the evil Serpent God – Apophis – and a dark wizard with dreams of conquest. He seduced Ahnk-sun-Amun*, Seti's mistress and future bride; between the two they murdered their liege in a bid for his throne. The Princess Nefertiri witnessed the attack on her father from her terrace across the courtyard from her father's chambers. She alerted his guards but it was too late, Seti I was no more and Imhotep escaped; the only consolation for his children was that Ahnk-sun-Amun lost her life as well. What none knew was that she sacrificed herself because she knew her lover would be able to return the pieces of her soul from the Underworld._

_Imhotep stole her body but was caught with his followers deep in the bowls of Hamunaptra before he was able to resurrect his beloved. His minions were sentenced to be mummified alive but for heretical nature of his crimes, the dark wizard suffered the Hum-Dai – cursed to remain undead for all time. By the order of the new Pharaoh Ramses II, the body was entombed within Hamunaptra and the city forever abandoned. He then charged his dead father's most loyal guards with the duty of protecting Egypt from the evils of its past._

_For nearly three thousand years, we… the Medjai – magical warriors descended from Pharaoh's Sacred Guards – have watched over Egypt and protected the people from untold evil. Twice the creature that was Imhotep was raised and each time it was put back down but not before it created some level of chaos. After the second incident, the Commanders of the Twelve Tribes of the Medjai ordered their most trusted warrior to be placed into a magical sleep in case the creature rose a third time because the tribes were going to scatter to the four corners of the world to seek out cursed treasures plundered from Egyptian tombs._

_The secrets of Hamunaptra remained buried under the desert sands for seventy years…_

Ch. 1: A Comedy of Errors

_Borgin & Burkes, Knockturn Alley; June 23, 1993_

It was a sunny Saturday and Diagon Alley and its darker counterpart were both packed with students not long returned home from Hogwarts for the summer in search of diversion. Among the throng of teen witches and wizards were two well known redheaded pranksters. Fred and George Weasley had managed to con their harried mother into letting the troublesome twosome pick up some last minute necessities for the upcoming family vacation. Their father, Arthur – an overworked and underpaid Ministry employee – won The Daily Prophet's Annual Galleon Drawing; nobody had won in the past couple of years so the prize grew until it was equal to 10% of the paper's yearly income. That meant that the once poor family received just over a million galleons… after the Ministry took out their cut, of course.

After half the coin was deposited into the Family Vault, their dad and mum – Molly – set up Trust Vaults of fifty thousand galleons each for the five kids still at home then split another hundred thousand between the personal vaults of the two oldest Weasley sons, Bill and Charlie. What was left over was used to renovate the Burrow, pay for two family trips – one to visit Bill in Egypt over the summer and the other to spend Christmas with Charlie in Romania this year, rent rooms at the Leaky Cauldron for the last two days of August and get everyone new wardrobes. The one thing that was accidently left off the shopping list had been new trunks for the trip, which would be used later for school. A quick bribe to their younger siblings, Ron and Ginny, to keep their mum off balance and the family's resident tricksters were able to escape her watchful eye and pick up the magical luggage unsupervised.

As soon as the twins had the new trunks shrunk and placed in their pockets, they managed to sneak off into Knockturn Alley after a couple of well placed Glamours. Ever since their friend, Harry Potter, had his misadventure there the previous summer the duo had wanted to check it out for themselves. The sights, sounds and people of the darker part of London's magical shopping district did nothing to dampen the pair's excitement. Eventually, they ended up in Borgin & Burkes to see if they might find some inspiration for pranks against the wannabe Death Eaters in Slytherin. After all, the bigoted bastards acted a little too pleased last year when Slytherin's Monster was terrorizing the school so a little payback was in order. Although, if asked, they would be the first to tell you that not every member of the Snake Pit was evil; especially since their secret girlfriends were both Snakes. Fred was drooling over the Hand of Glory when George noticed a strange looking puzzle box covered in hieroglyphics. He seemed to be drawn to the ancient curio.

"How much for this box," George asked Borgin when the shopkeeper appeared from the back room.

"I'm afraid that piece has been in the shop for several decades; there's just not as much interest in Egyptian artifacts as there once was. I could let you have for… ten galleons," the oily wizard that reminded the brothers of Professor Snape responded with a slightly put out tone.

"Very good, my brother and I will take it along with the Hand of Glory," Fred commented then produced the requisite coinage; much to the older wizards delight.

The transaction completed, the pair quickly made their way back to the Leaky Cauldron, dropped their Glamours then flooed back home before their mother started to get suspicious. Just before the twins went to bed that night, George figured out how to open the puzzle box and found a folded up parchment map inside.

"Hey, we should show that to Bill after we get to Cairo," Fred suggested before the pair drifted off to sleep.

_Cursebreaker Camp – Hamunaptra, Egypt; August 29, 1993_

Ron Weasley was having the worst summer ever; first, his mum stopped him from using the money in his new trust vault to buy a Firebolt. Then the family hadn't even been in Cairo a day when the twins showed Bill some stupid old map. His oldest brother got so excited that he immediately apparated to the local Gringott's branch with the parchment still in hand. The next thing he knew, they were out in the middle of the desert will Bill and a team of cursebreakers trying to find some lost city. To make matters worse, mum decided that all the boys were going to help out because it was going to be a learning experience. Finally, adding insult to injury, when they weren't working his family was more interested in paying attention to Ginny than to him. Sure, she'd spent most of the year possessed by that stupid diary then forced down into the Chamber of Secrets but it turned out fine; he'd almost died because of those acromantula in the Forbidden Forest and could've been petrified by that bloody basilisk all he got for his trouble was his mum yelling at him for hours when he pointed that out.

He tip-toed his way from the tent he was forced to share with some weird Egyptian wizard that kept freaking out every couple of minutes as he pointed at things and said, "This is Cursed," because poor Gin-Gin had nightmares and needed to use the extra room in their parents' tent. Ron cautiously made his way to the sorting tent where all the treasures that had been recovered so far were kept while Scabbers rode on his shoulder. He was a little worried about his pet because the old rat had started to get sickly not long after they arrived in the country but if he carked it then the redhead could replace it with an even better pet when they returned home. As soon as he reached his destination he smiled in anticipation and with an avaricious gleam in his eyes.

The reason for both was actually the only good thing about this hellish summer; it was Gringott's policy that everyone that worked on a dig got to keep one artifact. After that, the team members were allowed another item annually for each year spent at the site. This was in addition to any curses, or things from their areas of expertise they found. With Hamunaptra being so huge, it was going to take years before it was fully raided…er… explored and Bill was going to make out like a bandit because he was named team leader. Ron wanted to make sure he got his before all the good stuff was taken. Gold glittered under the permanent Lumnos spell inside the tent from the close to a hundred items recovered so far but only the ones on the long table down the center had been identified and tagged. He quickly decided that the best stuff wouldn't have been tagged yet so he was going to bypass the table and head straight for the piles of stuff at the back of the tent when something caught his eye.

A bronze bowl with that funny picture writing all over the outside of it made him stop and he read the tag. The bowl had enchantments that not only magically duplicated any food that had ever been in it when the command word _Hunger_ was spoken and was self-cleaning; it also got rid of any poisons on the food. Ron snatched up a self-inking quill from the center of the table then wrote his name on the tag. He smirked when he realized that he'd never be hungry again. He was about to turn bag to the entrance but finally noticed the twins open puzzle box next to a book made of some sort of black metal. It had been discovered that the open box sort of acted like a key to open some of the things that were found. Curiosity got the better of him and he used the _key_ to unlock the book and opened it. His mum, and Hermione for that matter, was always harping at him to read books and he figured there might be some sort of brilliant spell that could be used on Malfoy.

A chill went down his spine when his fingers touched the book but he ignored it along with the strange breeze that blew through the tent as he opened the cover. _Bloody hell, this is filled with nothing but that daft picture writing_ – Ron thought as he skimmed the contents. It could never be said that the youngest Weasley son was the sharpest tool in the family shed but nobody could argue that he had his moments… in both directions (brilliance and utter stupidity) and this was unfortunately about to become one. Where his mum and professors thought he was just plain lazy, he preferred to think of it as conserving his energy for more important things. Everyone knew that school was useless; the only class that was worth anything was the flying lessons. Seriously, all the other classes at Hogwarts were absolute rubbish and had nothing to do with Quidditch. The only reason he went to school was because the only way to go professional was to play on one of the four House Teams. Not that he ever got off his arse in an attempt to reach his goal; nope, just like everything else in life he expected it to be handed to him as payback for always being overshadowed by others. Besides, he was a pureblood male and it was a well established fact that men ran everything while women catered to their every need so it was only a matter of time before he got his due.

He grabbed the quill he'd used early and some blank parchment then ran a finger along the cold metal page until it stopped on an interesting picture which he copied rather crudely. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and Scabbers squeaked nervously when they both heard a strange murmuring. Ron had jumped at the sound and hadn't noticed his finger jumped to a higher picture on the page. He focused on the task at hand and moved his finger over to the next picture. Again, after he copied it a low murmur startled him enough to jump and like before his finger moved to a lower image. The same thing happened twice more but still the redhead soldiered on.

Once the last picture was copied, he used his borrowed wand (he'd only get a new one when they went school shopping) and cast the Phonetic Charm his mum used to teach all of them to read as well as a Latin to English Translation Charm that a certain bushy haired know-it-all had taught him back in first year. His eyes lit up with glee as he read the new text aloud to practice.

"Klaatu Barata Ne… ne… Necrophilia Inverso… um… Boys," Ron intoned questioningly.*

Instead of a weird muttering, a hot wind blew through the tent along with the sound of a loud hungry growl. Ron yelped while the rat squeaked in terror before it jumped off his shoulder and scurried toward the ruins. It took a couple of minutes for the teen wizard calmed down enough before he chased after his rather worthless pet.

Peter Pettigrew, unregistered animagus and Death Eater in hiding, transformed from his rat form as soon as he squeezed through the hole in the wall that lead to the hidden storage room where he hid the small treasure he'd pilfered from the site since he was forced to come here with the Weasley's. The morning they'd arrived in this God forsaken country and Arthur read about Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban prison, the rat knew his days were numbered. It had been Pettigrew that framed the former convict for murdering him, those thirteen muggles and betraying James and Lily Potter to his Master. But that wasn't why he'd been hiding in his animagus form for all these years; no, even with Sirius safely tucked away in Azkaban he still how to worry about the other Death Eaters that avoided going to prison trying to kill him for providing the information that lead to the Dark Lord's defeat. A few select items and half the gold were hopefully going to be enough to buy his life from the Death Eaters; the rest was going to be used to hide from Sirius' impending wrath. A few spells later, everything was boxed, shrunk and stored in his tattered pockets after a Feather Light Charm. Then he was a rat again headed back to the redheaded moron that was his _owner_.

Ron had gotten lost inside the ruins as he chased after Scabbers. In a moment of frustration, he vented by kicking at the ever present sand only to trip and fall. His thick head and shoulder hit the right side of a statue base. The stone slab loosened and the teen barely rolled to the side before it fell to the ground revealing a secret compartment. Inside was a cloth wrapped bundle the shape of a book. The youngest Weasley son snatched the bundle then leaned the slab back in place before he continued his search for the wayward rat. Luckily, Scabbers found him not long after the stone was roughly back in its proper place and lead his master back to camp. Once safely back in his tent, Ron hid the bundle in his rucksack with the Undetectable Expansion Charm on the inside.

As he lay back onto his cot his thoughts drifted to Hermione. If that bundle was a book then it would be a good present that might keep the bushy haired witch off his back for a while. The young man had reached that age when hormones caused him to start noticing girls. It was at that moment that Ron made up his mind in regards to his female friend. The witch wasn't the most attractive girl at school and nobody else was going to even consider dating the bookworm so he was going to make her his girlfriend. By his way of thinking, it was a win-win situation. Once she was his then she'd naturally do all of his homework for him. Then starting over Christmas break he'd get her away from those muggles that were such a bad influence on her and once safely at the Burrow she'd see how women were supposed to act. After learning everything about homemaking from his mum, they'd have a sprog or two to keep her happy. For Hermione, she'd get the honor of being first the girlfriend then maybe wife of the future star keeper of the Chudley Cannons. With his plan firmly decided, he drifted off for a few hours of sleep because they were going home in the morning.

In a cave fifty miles deeper in the desert the spells that kept the prone man in a magical sleep and temporal stasis began to erode. By the time the rising sun shown into the cave, Ardeth Bey's eyes fluttered open just as a gaggle of redheads activated the international portkey that was to take them to Gringott's London before heading home. The recently awakened warrior arose from the cot he'd spent the last several decades on and stretched as he gave his resting place an appraising gaze. It was obvious to the Medjai that nobody had been there to check upon him for many years from the run down state of things. The warrior wizard cast several spells, one of which – The Whispering Wind – to summon any of his brethren in the area. The others were to ascertain how long he'd been asleep and how the creature was revived this time. It was the last spell that vexed him because the magic used to return Imhotep from the Underworld was muddled for some reason. After several hours without any other Medjai making themselves known, Ardeth did the only logical and expedient thing he could. He strapped on his weapons then apparated to accursed Hamunaptra.

**AN: Okay, this was something that's been buzzing around my head for a few days. The next update for Unchained should be up by Sunday night. That story and this one will be my priorities but I haven't abandoned any of my others so they will eventually get updated as well because at least two of my other stories have only a chapter left before they're finished. As for this story, here it goes…**

**For the two places marked, there is a reason. On several sites Ahnk-sun-Amun was spelled two different ways. I chose to use the one from a paper by a history professor that pointed out the historical inaccuracies in The Mummy; some of which I'm going to try to attempt to correct. As to the resurrection spell, well I couldn't find a written version anywhere online so I decided to give a nod to Sam Raimi and his Evil Dead trilogy. Maybe Ash will make a guest appearance but it's doubtful.**

**Ron, what can I say about his character except I really hate it. Expect Fate's twin sister, Karma, to bitch slap him hard in this fic. On the pairings front, this is going to be a Harry/Multi but only one girl is set in stone so far and I'm open to suggestions but please not too many obvious ones. **


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: This story has been adopted by HarryMuto.**


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